Ed Cryptozoology and megafauna

[Dinwar]

Fascinating. Well, at least you're honest.

It may be that I'm in a bad mood and have had to address six different he-said-she-said issues today already, but this came across as fairly insulting. I'd like to know what you mean by this statement.

If you mean that I'm ignorant, I'll agree that I'm ignorant about the number of human fossils found on Earth. I've never pretended otherwise and it's not my area of expertise. Frankly, I don't think anyone does; it's not a simple question. However, I AM fairly well-versed in Quaternary and Tertiary North American mammal fossils (don't ask precise numbers--you have no concept how complicated that question is), and I can assure you that there are no fossils from any homanid species other than Homo sapiens sapiens found in North Ameirca.

If you mean something else, please say it directly. I'm not in the mood for word games just now.

 

[Resume]

I obviously walked into a hornet's nest here.

It can be quite jarring to discover one's pet enthusiasm to be full of holes.

 

[Correa Neto]

So, Live&Learn, are you feeling disgusted by this hornets' nest? You probably can relax while hunting some bears.

Haven't you noticed the skeptical nature of this forum? Claims must be backed with evidence. Reliable evidence. Its not a church where "the bible says so" and "Jesus saved me" are enough.

Are you actually surprised?

 

[Correa Neto]

he di not mention Mapinguari by name, but we did talk about the riduculous giant ground sloth BS. (see more below on that)
he did however say that the Kaiapo?sp? do have a BF legend, but it is considered to be essentially a campfire story to keep the kids from wandering off to far. He also said that one of the first enthnographer/anthropologists to hear the story came out of the jungle spouting that it was evidence that the Kaiapo had had contact with an american indian from the pacific north west. Once the North American idian apparently learned their language , he passed on the story, which the Kaiapo adopted into their own mythology.

The woman "professional anthropologist" who came up with that far fetched scenario was duly castigated and minimalized by the anthropologic community for making such a fantastic claim with absolutely no evidence! sound familiar?

Caiapó, Kayapó or Kaiapó. All forms are correct, but "Caiapó" is the most common. However, its actually how other tribes called them back in the XIX century. Caiapó means "monkey-like men", because they have rituals where the men use masks of monkeys. The call themselves "Mebêngôkre" ("Men of the water hole").
http://www.encontrodeculturas.com.br/2012/artista/kayapo-mebengokre (In Portuguese)

I honestly fail to understand reasons for the anthropologis's conclusion. The Amazon jungle is not exactly devoid of monkeys...

There are some myths about hairy humanoids here in Brazil- not a surprise in a country with lots of monkey species, small and big. Not as big as African apes, however. Our family has a friend who's an Indian (Notheaster Brazil); he also happens to work at museum of Indian culture; it may be a good idea to contact him see what I can dig on this. By the end of July I'll go to the Amazon with my family where we'll meet with people from another tribe. May be another good opportunity to find some good sources too. I do like to study our native myths. By the way, it is no problem here in Brazil to use the word "Indian". Even they use this word, especially when when they want to reffer to more than a tribe or ethnic group.

I find the giant ground sloth surving story to be interesting for a couple of reasons. The first i heard of it some ornithologist David Oren anyway he ended up on a documentary , probably mid 1990's, in search of the ground sloth. he had a call, sounded exactly like BoBos Bigfoot call, and the hunt looked exactly like aBF hunt. I was rolling on the floor laughing because his hired local guides would see the ground sloth day after day, showing him piles of what turned out to be armadillo crap, and agouti hair, even his "claw marks looked suspiciously like they were made with the tool rubber tappers used to score the rubber tree bark. His local guides would see the sloth just up ahead, day after day, and this idiot kept eating up the BS, paying and feeding them and giving them camera time, it was a joy to watch the idiot get worked by the locals! good for the local economy!
At least we actually have fossils of the ground sloth!

I remember seeing this documentary, or a rather similar one. Facepalm prize. I bet some First Nations and rural Americans also BS footers in similar ways. LOLs must be common during and after their "expeditions"...

 

[TsuDhoNimh]

The Bigfoot hunters have decided that the Southwest has bigfoot roaming the mountains of AZ and NM (coincidentally, elk territory)

So far, I have listened to their videos of the supposed calls of the bigfoot and identified many elk barking (or deer - they make a similar warning barking noise) and a few fox screams. Some bush thrashing (again, characteristic of elk during the run-up to breeding season) and a lot of hype. They don't seem to understand that elk see extremely well in lowlight conditions and are active all night unless it's full dark of the moon or cloudy.

What I would like is for a large bull elk to sneak up on them in the night and let off a really loud bugle right behind them ... the call that starts with some basso profundo coughs to warm up and zooms up into an earsplitting squeal and back down.

They'd be halfway back to Phoenix before they stopped soiling themselves.

 

[Live&Learn]

Why a slab? A live specimen in a cage would work just as well.

<snip>

Okay. You got me. That was a poor choice of words. I would much prefer to see a live specimen. I'm probably too skeptical, but I don't think we're going to be that lucky. My guess is someone will eventually shoot one and then this particular discussion will come to a screeching halt.

 

[Live&Learn]

So, Live&Learn, are you feeling disgusted by this hornets' nest? You probably can relax while hunting some bears.

Haven't you noticed the skeptical nature of this forum? Claims must be backed with evidence. Reliable evidence. Its not a church where "the bible says so" and "Jesus saved me" are enough.

Are you actually surprised?

No. Not disgusted at all. Actually, this is quite refreshing.

 

[Live&Learn]

It may be that I'm in a bad mood and have had to address six different he-said-she-said issues today already, but this came across as fairly insulting. I'd like to know what you mean by this statement.

If you mean that I'm ignorant, I'll agree that I'm ignorant about the number of human fossils found on Earth. I've never pretended otherwise and it's not my area of expertise. Frankly, I don't think anyone does; it's not a simple question. However, I AM fairly well-versed in Quaternary and Tertiary North American mammal fossils (don't ask precise numbers--you have no concept how complicated that question is), and I can assure you that there are no fossils from any homanid species other than Homo sapiens sapiens found in North Ameirca.

If you mean something else, please say it directly. I'm not in the mood for word games just now.

Sorry about that. No insult intended. Sometimes I'm too succint. You said.

"I'm not sure how many Gigantopithecus fossils have been found."

Since you were represented by another poster as the heavyweight on this topic, I naturally assumed you would be able to enlighten us on the number of Gigantopithecus skeletons that have been found worldwide.

Now that I've hopefully cleared up any confusion, would you care to comment on that number?

 

[Live&Learn]

The evidence on dermal ridges is questionable, at best. But that's a topic for another thread.

<snip>

Okay. Where is that thread?

 

[Resume]

My guess is someone will eventually shoot one and then this particular discussion will come to a screeching halt.

What exactly leads you to this guess?

 

[Dinwar]

Now that I've hopefully cleared up any confusion, would you care to comment on that number?

Sure. Just as soon as you explain to me why a paleontologist focused on Quaternary mammology in North American would know about an Asian species of ape. Oh, and one more criteria: you have to get the anthropologists to all agree on the number. I don't care what the answer is--I'm just saying that you need to get them all to agree.

Go ahead. I'll wait. With a first aid kit, some beer, and popcorn (I always loved a good brawl).

You genuinely have no clue what you're asking. It's not as simple as counting skeletons. There are fine gradations between hominid species present in the fossil record, to the point where it's often extremely difficult to determine where one group ended and another begins. This gets into the very concept of "species", and how one defines species often determines how one defines which fossils are Gigantopithecus and which are not. Since Asian apes isn't my area of expertise, I'm not going to jump into that minefield just to make you happy. You want your curiosity satisfied, YOU get them to agree.

That said, I can confidently tell you exactly how many Gigantopithecus fossils have been discovered in North America, since that IS within my area of expertise: Zero. None. Not a single one. Jefferson doesn't record any, Miller doesn't, "Tertiary Mammals of North America" doesn't, and after several years of working in prime Bigfoot territory I've yet to see a single fossil of one. NO hominid fossils--NOT A SINGLE ONE, OF ANY SPECIES, have been found in North America other than Homo sapiens sapiens. Given the extensive excavation of Quaternary sediment in North America, that sort of disproves the idea that Bigfoot is Gigantopithecus.

My guess is someone will eventually shoot one and then this particular discussion will come to a screeching halt.

You can't shoot something that's imaginary. And since there's absolutely no evidence of any hominid other than Homo sapiens sapiens in North America, that's all we can say Bigfoot is.

 

[Apology]

(snip)

You can't shoot something that's imaginary. And since there's absolutely no evidence of any hominid other than Homo sapiens sapiens in North America, that's all we can say Bigfoot is.

I fear that it will be homo sapiens sapiens that is shot some day---possibly a joker wearing a gorilla suit, or maybe even an ordinary guy sans costume who just needs a haircut, a shave, and a little cosmetic waxing Zealous bigfootery frightens me sometimes.

 

[Dinwar]

My YouTube-fu is weak today, but I'm pretty sure there was an episode of "1,000 Ways to Die" about exactly that.

 

[EHocking]

...Since you were represented by another poster as the heavyweight on this topic, I naturally assumed you would be able to enlighten us on the number of Gigantopithecus skeletons that have been found worldwide.

Now that I've hopefully cleared up any confusion, would you care to comment on that number?

Exactly?


None.





They have only found teeth and a few mandibles..
Google is your friend, even if it just Wiki on the subject.